NBA 2007 Podcast #1: Jonathan Franzen
Written byPosted on November 14, 2007
Filed Under Franzen, Jonathan, National Book Awards
(This podcast is part of our National Book Awards coverage for 2007, in which five bloggers are attempting various journalistic experiments using unusual technological methods. For more posts and other tomfoolery, keep checking under this category.)
People on This Podcast: Jonathan Franzen
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
You two share exactly the same voice. What gives? Are you and Jonathan Franzen the same person?
Wow. That was David Brent-level awkward.
I’m scared to listen now.
the interviewer sounds like a fool…..not funny and meaningless……surprised franzen bothered to try to engage…..
I can understand why he reacted the way he did. Ed, you do sound kind of manic.
I agree, the interviewer does sound like a fool. I hope he isn’t really a fool.
Good Kirk, meet evil Kirk.
It reminded me of the overactive pre-awards show interviewers when they bombard actors with quesitons devoid of context. I don’t think Ed was being mean, or not intentionally so, but in Franzen’s shoes, when someone out of the blue asks about something unrelated to the evening at hand, I think it’d be a little jarring.
Yeah, I’ve gotta go with manic, I’m afraid.
Third vote here for manic. Franzen sounded like he had a stick stuck somewhere, though.
Why would Franzen want to accept a friend invitation from what in this clip sounds like the voice of spam?
The conversation started out fairly well. Franzen seemed to handle the first question ok. Asking about Facebook at the NBA event is somewhat out of context but he sounded like he didn’t get too flustered until Ed asked him why he joined Facebook in the first place. At that point things seemed to change abruptly but it’s hard to tell exactly what happened.
Ed – was there some kind of body language/facial expression thing that happened that doesn’t come across on the audio. Because after that question he gets irrational and you do a good job of restraining your desire to go off on him.
That was kinda excruciating.
Ed–do you work for Facebook or something?
Just kidding. I thought the whole blogging at the NBAs was pretty spectacular. The Hitchens interview was especially good. I was going back and forth on my computer from your coverage there to the other NBA (basketball scores)!
Was that Tucker Carlson interviewing? Blech!
[...] Back in April, it was revealed that the galley for James Ellroy’s Blood’s a Rover contained a note asking all of Ellroy’s readers to become his Facebook friend. Well, since Ellroy happened to be at BookExpo America, I decided to ask him about what the nature of this “Facebook friend” relationship entailed. Ellroy promptly placed his arm around my shoulder and gave me his explanation. I think it’s safe to say that Ellroy’s idea of “Facebook friend” is much different from Jonathan Franzen’s. [...]